What Bravery Is
by LuckyPenny123
Summary: When Narcissa Black was eleven, she sat on a three legged stool in front of five hundred students and wished with her all her might to not be brave. The Sorting Hat deliberated on Gryffindor anyway.


**A/N: Woah, it's been a long time since I was on this site but here's a little one shot that just popped in to my head. I have no idea what it actually is - it's strange and probably all over the place but Narcissa wouldn't leave my brain alone. Hope you enjoy. Please please tell me what you think. Ego boosts go a long way but constructive criticism is always welcome.**

 **Disclaimer: This may come as a shock but I am not JK Rowling...**

When Narcissa Black was eleven, she sat on a three legged stool in front of five hundred students and wished with her all her might to _not_ be brave.

"Not brave, hmm," snarked the Sorting Hat. (It knew, you see. It could see her mind). "Not brave? But Miss Black, you could be so brilliant, go so far – that loyalty, that courage, Gryffindor would be perfect."

And Narcissa gritted her teeth and chanted, "My nickname is Cissy for a reason, my nickname is Cissy for a reason."

It was the first time she embraced it, the first time she wished with all her might that everyone that knew her was right. That she really was Silly Cissy, the youngest and prettiest in a family of independent women, the one that would be a trophy wife and a mother and wanted nothing else.

She had grown up on games of weddings and refused to play Death Eaters with Bella and she had a doll that she called Tom and swore was real. She was sweet and innocent and a little too placid to be a Black but a Black she was and Silly Cissy would end up in Slytherin like all the others.

(The Sorting Hat saw this and knew this and knew too that bravery was not measured in displays of brilliance but thoughts of defiance. She would make a brilliant Gryffindor but it was that that demanded that she belong in Slytherin).

And so Narcissa Black sat down at the table closest to the left wall and smiled at her sisters and smirked at Lucius Malfoy's flirtatious wink.

She spent her years at Hogwarts in a dark green dungeon, laughing at Mudbloods and sending jinxes with a twist of a wand under her robes. She smirked and pressed herself close to _darling_ Lucius and kept her nose lifted to the sky.

But the bravery wouldn't go away.

She was the youngest and the silliest of the Black sisters but when Andromeda was caught with that Mudblood boy in the corridors she pushed her away with both hands and made a song and a dance and forced her in to a future that she knew would be so much brighter than Slytherin could offer. Ted Tonks was golden and Andy deserved the best and Narcissa didn't realise how much courage that took until it was done.

Because her future was all silver. She might have been a Black but her favourite colour was red and her eyes were ice blue. What Lucius didn't know couldn't hurt him. It took courage to know a snake and love it regardless and, under all those layers of lies, Narcissa Black was nothing if not brave.

And so she lived in a mansion like the one she had always imagined and albino peacocks strutted in the grounds and she had a husband who doted and loved her and showered her with gold. And she had a son, with hair as silver as hers was golden and she named him Draco because she knew that dragons could be defeated and she wanted him to know it too.

Lucius loved her. Bella was in Azkaban. Andy was happy. And Cissy had a son that would save the world.

But silver is just a shade away from grey and white peacocks are genetic mutations. She would never forget Draco's screams as they burnt the mark in to his arm. She would never forget her husband's shame as they locked him behind bars.

Loyalty is the song of the lioness and courage is born from it. She dyed her hair black and white and simpered "Yes my lord, of course my lord" as Bella took over her household and a man with a face like a snake roamed the halls. She cast spells and killed people and despaired as Draco drifted further and further away, thrashing, moaning, dragged under by the strength of waves no child should ever have to bear. Her nose stopped pointing at the sky and her back grew straighter and there was defiance in her eyes.

And so she whispered "Is he alive? Is Draco alive?" and let Harry Potter live for his mother had loved him too and she knew how it felt. The despair and love and never-ending worry that caused the lioness to throw off her shackles and do anything to protect her young.

No one would know that it was little Narcissa Black, silly simpering Cissy, who had brought down Voldemort. No one would think of her, the spineless Slytherin who wished to save her son's life more than anything else, who let Harry live because she had enough courage to try. No one would remember the bravery, the lies she bound herself in, the smiles she faked. No one would ever want to know the story of a family of traitors, a family that believed dragons could be beaten and knew that Slytherin was so much closer to Gryffindor than anyone thought.

No one wanted to.

But the Sorting Hat remembered the little girl with the golden mane who belonged in Gryffindor but made a home for herself in Slytherin and he rejoiced for there was hope yet that there would be a world without walls and a chance for everyone to be brave and devious and clever and kind.

(After all that is what true bravery is).

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